Some thoughts!!

[nForce]

Spending money on the youth? Hell yeah... spending it on forcing them to train for military serive? NO.... there are soooo incredibly more useful areas to spend money on in India to improve the educational and physical skills of the young people.
Spend money on quality education provided by the government (from basic schooling to higher education), invest in building up a proper sports culture, make proper nutrition compulsory for every school, invest in better training for teachers etc etc etc.... This is gonna be so much better than forcing youngsters to deviate from their own paths and to join something they don want to.

And conscripts are of lesser quality than regulars anyways, lack morale and simply waste money, time and resources.

And who is gonna pay for that?

You know about NCC right ? Now can you deny the importance of NCC ? I want NCC to be mandatory in all schools and colleges.Education is not just about mugging up, there should be an all-round development and there should be clearly defined and standardized goals.If you don't know much about NCC then let me assure you its not about providing some military training to young boys and girls.Its about a well-designed approach towards a sound mental and physical development, its about character-building, being a team player, creating the abilities to take decisions under challenging circumstances, and last but not the least, discipline.
There should be separate budgets and separate plans for different activities.I am certainly not in the mood of hearing poor reasoning like, " this money can be spent in better manner".A few days back, some fellow was arguing with me that we should not try improve situation of sports in India, for there are too many poor and hungry people in India.If we have to take every decisions in the light of poor and hungry people without toilets then we might as well shut down our space program, defence spendings, education, healthcare, infrastructure development and a lot many other things.
The point is there has to be wholesome, all round development.I just cannot say that I want a student to be a champion in 'committing to the book and vomiting to the paper' -syndrome and a dud when it comes to other aspects.

The development should be balanced and the methodology also has to be standardized, just the way, the books are standardized.And hence this calls for the requirement of a system that has to be implemented nation-wide by the government.

 

[janon]

You know about NCC right ? Now can you deny the importance of NCC ? I want NCC to be mandatory in all schools and colleges.Education is not just about mugging up, there should be an all-round development and there should be clearly defined and standardized goals.If you don't know much about NCC then let me assure you its not about providing some military training to young boys and girls.Its about a well-designed approach towards a sound mental and physical development, its about character-building, being a team player, creating the abilities to take decisions under challenging circumstances, and last but not the least, discipline.
...

Koovie was arguing against conscription. NCC is not conscription. It is similar to the boy/girl scouts in the US. Conscription means compulsory military service by adults of military age. It is a completely different thing.

Yes there has to be all round development of many abilities, not just mugging textbooks and spitting it out at the end of the year. I think we all agree on that.

Conscription has a specific meaning. You are both on different pages.

 

[nForce]

Koovie was arguing against conscription. NCC is not conscription. It is similar to the boy/girl scouts in the US. Conscription means compulsory military service by adults of military age. It is a completely different thing.

Yes there has to be all round development of many abilities, not just mugging textbooks and spitting it out at the end of the year. That is agreed.

Conscription has a specific meaning. You are both on different pages.

I am perfectly aware of what NCC is, let me assure you that.I want the role to be augmented and to be enforced by the government.Mandatory recruitment for all in NCC and atleast 6 months of service, which can be considered as a vocational training.We already have the concept of such trainings in colleges for academic purposes, why not the same for other aspects of development?

 

[janon]

I am perfectly aware of what NCC is, let me assure you that.I want the role to be augmented and to be enforced by the government.Mandatory recruitment for all in NCC and atleast 6 months of service, which can be considered as a vocational training.We already have the concept of such trainings in colleges for academic purposes, why not the same for other aspects of development?

The NCC is run by the military, and in a militarized fashion (uniforms, marching etc). That is one way of developing all the qualities you mentioned, but not the only one. Sports can also build teamspirit and leadership and other qualities, and so can many other activities. People are different - while one kind of activity may suit one person, it won't suit another. Why compel everybody to go through NCC regardless of their penchant?

Another aspect of course is that it will severely strain our armed forces, if they have to babysit every schoolchild in the country. A lot of manpower will have to be diverted from our fighting forces, and be spent on teaching schoolkids to march. That is a severe wastage of human resources. It's best if we keep that activity restricted to those kids who want it and choose it.

 

[OrionHunter]

I want to discuss the following things which came to mind while having afternoon rest. I think our education system (some in school and some in college) must have the following subjects(not related to mark and not for long duration) as compulsory.

Swimming : About 80% of City people do not know swimming resulting in deaths like Andaman, Mahanadi incidents. All children must be taught basic swimming. Even a 5-10 minutes remaining afloat may save your life.

Learning to use Gun : Do not assume that I am getting paranoid or being apocalyptic. See owing a gun is not same as learning to use a gun. I have shot only 5 rounds in a .303 rifle during my NCC days and now have a air rifle (which does not require License). No I am not advocating conscription or neither advocating firearms in each house (I can see the result in Pakistan)!!

House maintenance : Painting, little bit of plumbing, little bit of carpentering etc..

I will add more when I think more.....

When I was in school, which was years ago, we had the first period as Physical Training which included boxing, rope climbing, pull-ups, endurance runs etc.

The second period was reserved for handwriting. Thrice a week we had a period on General Knowledge and drawing/painting. Once a week (Saturdays) was reserved for inter-house debates in English.

Once a fortnight in the afternoons we had Cubs and Scouts, and NCC for the seniors.

Needless to say, games including football, hockey, basketball and volleyball, and indoor games like table tennis were compulsory and played every afternoon from 3PM to 4PM except on Cubs/Scouts/NCC days.

That's what makes for a rounded personality!! Seeing the bookworms of today but none of the above activities is sad! Heck, most schools don't even have playgrounds!! This really sucks!

 

[Indischer]

Swimming in river is a complete different thing and those who are champions in swimming pools may find it difficult to manage the undercurrent water in rivers. But it is a great exercise and we should promote it like other cricket and football too. Boys in rural India, if trained properly can bring medals in swimming in International level.
Training on Guns i don't think is necessary because we are not allowed to keep guns first of all. A compulsory military training for one year might be a course of debate but guns training should not be our priority.
I think one of the areas we should emphasize on is cleanliness and developing basic civic sense in kids;to make them such an ardent follower of these areas that nobody in future spits on road,no body sculpts his girlfriend's name on archaeological monuments and tombs. And training on non conventional energy sources should be necessary because this is going to be one major thing we have to lean upon in the next century.

Forget rivers, large Lakes can be just as bad. A friend of mine came dangerously close to drowning in a Lake last year...in front of my disbelieving and despairing eyes, and he could swim very well in the pool. The wake of a ship that passed nearby created waves in the Lake, and he suddenly found himself being overwhelmed by the waves.

 

[Koovie]

this money can be spent in better manner"

Yes it can! Y

You know about NCC right ? Now can you deny the importance of NCC ? I want NCC to be mandatory in all schools and colleges.Education is not just about mugging up, there should be an all-round development and there should be clearly defined and standardized goals.If you don't know much about NCC then let me assure you its not about providing some military training to young boys and girls.Its about a well-designed approach towards a sound mental and physical development, its about character-building, being a team player, creating the abilities to take decisions under challenging circumstances, and last but not the least, discipline.
There should be separate budgets and separate plans for different activities.I am certainly not in the mood of hearing poor reasoning like, " this money can be spent in better manner".A few days back, some fellow was arguing with me that we should not try improve situation of sports in India, for there are too many poor and hungry people in India.If we have to take every decisions in the light of poor and hungry people without toilets then we might as well shut down our space program, defence spendings, education, healthcare, infrastructure development and a lot many other things.
The point is there has to be wholesome, all round development.I just cannot say that I want a student to be a champion in 'committing to the book and vomiting to the paper' -syndrome and a dud when it comes to other aspects.

The development should be balanced and the methodology also has to be standardized, just the way, the books are standardized.And hence this calls for the requirement of a system that has to be implemented nation-wide by the government.

1.) Yes I know about the NCC and their activities, but conscription is obviously kinda different from NCC activities which happen a few times in a week after school.
I know about the values they teach there and I fully support this organization.

2.) Yes, education should be about an overall development, but the problem is that there is not even proper basic education in many states, teachers are often substandard and our higher education system is mostly significantly behind the rest of the world, yeah there are very few examples like the IIMs and IITs but what about the rest? Why is not even one single Indian university among the worlds top 100? Would any one in India prefer to study in an Indian university rather than going abroad ? I guess no. In todays globalized world we have to stay competitive, otherwise we will face huge problems in the future.
We have to rework the entire educational system, from the bottom, and thats gonna be costly.
I also believe that values like nationalism, team spirit and physical fitness are very necessary, but forcing people into conscription goes way too far. There are other means to teach such things, which are less expensive, less distracting from the real issues and less threatening than providing military training to every student.

3.) I would never argue over cutting space programs etc etc etc..........

Obviously, each department has its own job and needs money and as long as the spending remains in proper levels (ISRO budget for instance is less than 0.5 % of our GDP) everything is fine.

But conscription has more disadvantageous than advantages for the military (Resources for training are lost, money, troop quality, morale, organization, equipment has to be provided, food, facilities of all kind etc etc etc),
while the good values like discipline, team spirit or maintaining physical fitness can be taught in other ways without introducing conscription.

 

[axisofevil]

Those who talk about money should focus on corruption which eats up available resources....the same resources that could be used to make all the points we mentioned a reality. Now that is a concrete step with concrete results.